Friday, April 30, 2010

Now that Loremaster is almost done (I should finish tomorrow, hopefully) it's time to start looking at my goal for the next month: getting as many reputations as possible to exalted.

wowjuju.com has an excellent reputation calculator that is customized to your character.

I took a look at every faction I need that has their own achievement and that wasn't already at exalted. I'm developing a plan for daily quests and dungeon runs based on this information.

NORTHREND
The Oracles - 301/21000 (Revered)
The Oracles have 3 daily quests yeilding a total of 1700 reputation per day. This means that in 13 days I'll be exalted (and I can then switch to frenzyheart)

The Kalu'ak - 2740/21000 (Revered)
The Kalu'ak have 3 daily quests (in 3 different zones) yeilding 1500 rep per day. Again, 13 days and I'll be exalted (and get a sweet fishing pole!)

THE BURNING CRUSADE

Ashtongue Deathsworn - 685/6000 (Friendly)
6 Full clears of Black Temple will help me hit exalted (I've done several one-off quests already). That means 6 weeks of raiding for a couple of hours at a time. In addition, I have the rest of a long quest chain to complete.

Netherwing - 250/3000 (Neutral)
I have completed all the quests up to the point where I can start doing Netherwing dailies. Aside from the achievement for exalted, Netherwing also supplies many mounts for the "100 mounts" achievement.

According to wowjuju, it will take me 18 days of completing all of the daily quests (6? 9?) to hit exalted. Fortunately they are all fairly close together.
The Mag'har - 2136/21000 (Revered)
This is a purely grindable faction - kill ogres in nagrand for rep and warbeads which can be turned in for more rep (or for consortium rep). Assuming I do nothing but kill mobs, I need to kill around 1900 ogres for xalted. This faction has a lot of nice Talbuk mounts for sale for the 100 mounts achievement.

The Violet Eye - 9027/12000 (Honored)
Grind Karazhan. I also have a few quests to help with rep. Wowjuju says 5 full clears of kara should be enough for exalted, so that's 5 weeks of raiding.

Cenarion Expedition - 6954/21000 (Revered)
There are a lot of ways to hit exalted with this faction. The simplest is probably just running steamvault and buying any coilfang armaments that are on the auctionhouse. 7 heroic Steamvaults runs is all that
I need.

Ogri'la - 735/6000 (Friendly)
Exalted will take 26 days worth of daily quests (4 per day) Since this is almost a full month worth of quests, I plan on making these one of my highest priorities.
The Scale of the Sands - 0/3000 (Neutral)
The only real way to get scales rep is by running Hyjal. Fortunately, I only need 6 clears to hit exalted. (6 weeks)

Thrallmar - 1637/21000 (Revered)
While there are some other ways of doing this, the simplest is going to be running either Blood Furnace (heroic) 8 times or heroic Shattered Halls 7 times. (7-8 days)

Keepers of Time - 7110/1200 (Honored)
Old Hillsbrad/ Black Morass farming. I need 11 Old Hillsbrad clears to exalted, so 11 days of runs.

Sha'tari Skyguard - 4080/6000 (Friendly)
In theory, it's possible to get Exalted in a single day via mob kills and repeatable quests, however I'm not doing this. There are 4 daily quests that will get me exalted in 26 days. I plan on doing these along with Ogri'la as my core dailies. I will, however, probably get some rep from kills and from turning in 6xShadow Dust repeatedly so I doubt it will take the full 26 days.

The Scryers - 11290/1200 (Honored)
63 Arcane Tomes or 870 Sunfury Signets will hit exalted for me. I picked up 250 signets for 130g the last time I checked the AH so I'll probably do a mix of buying signets and picking them up from some instances that I am running for rep for other factions.

Lower City - 634/12000 (Honored)
Realistically, the main way to do this is via running heroic Shadow Labyrinth. I need to do so 13 times (so 13 days) for exalted. It's tough to solo, even at 80.

Shattered Sun Offensive - 240/6000 (Friendly)
There are 21 daily quests for this faction, plus (heroic) Magisters Terrace. I plan on doing a mix of both since the dungeon gives a mount and a pet. If I do all the quests, it should take 8 days to hit exalted. Realistically, I'll probably do about 10 per day.
The Consortium - 6620/12000 (Honored)
Heroic Mana Tombs gives consortium rep (I'd need 11 heroic runs for exalted) and I can also turn in several
repeatable quests, notably warbeads from killing orgres for the Mag'har.

The Sha'tar - 11902/1200 (Honored)
Heroic Arcatraz or Botanica are the best places to farm Sha'tar rep, requiring a mere 8 runs until exalted. I also have several quests remaining that will give me several thousand rep when completed.

CLASSIC
Argent Dawn - 9352/21000 (Revered)
A combination of undead Stratholme runs (chance at the Baron mount) and turning in Scourgestones from said run should get me exalted in 7 runs or less. Especially since I get extra rep from rescuing the prisoner in under 45 minutes.

Cenarion Circle - 914/21000 (Revered)
Hitting exalted shouldn't be hard. I'll be running AQ40 (and perhaps 20) several times and I still have a few more quests to complete in silithus. I also happen to have a large number of Quiraji Lord's Insignia to hand in, although I am going to wait until I am almost neutral with Brood of Nozdormu first before doing so (because trash mobs no longer give brood rep at friendly). There are also lots of repeatable quests. I can't see this taking long to get.

Timbermaw Hold - 2550/3000 (Unfriendly)
This is simply a pure grind. I need to kill roughly 1600 mobs in felwood and loot them in order to have roughly enough to hit exalted. Notably, exalted gives a cool trinket.

Zandalar Tribe - 2431/12000 (Honored)
Running ZG 13 times will give me enough for exalted, however I plan to take all the bijous and coins and quests as well. I think I can get this done in around 4 runs, buying any final bijous from the AH. (about 250 bijous would do it too)

Brood of Nozdormu - 16001/36000 (Hated)
In theory, 9 full clears of AQ40 will get me to exalted. As I said above, I am saving all my tokens for post-neutral since trash will no longer give rep at this point. Important to note is that C'thun alone gives 2500 rep per kill. I expect to get this done in around 5-6 clears due to tokens.
Hydraxian Waterlords - 3065/1200 (Honored)
Yeah, fuck you Molten Core. I need 23 more clears (weeks) to hit exalted. Once I'm revered I'll only get 800 rep per clear (only need the bosses, no trash). I hate this one.

PVP
Arathi Basin and Warsong Gulch both need about 400 games for exalted. I'll focus more on these when it's time to PVP.

Finally completed Classic raider (all old-world raids) by getting into an AQ40 group. As you can see, I died inside Cthun's stomach as a result of the raid being too eager to pull the boss (most people were still outside).

Comically, there is no way to get rezzed in the inside of a boss...

As for Loremaster, I am down to my last 200 quests. I still think I can be finished by April 30th.

This involves winning AB 1600-1590. I actually thought I already had this one, but it looks like I don't. It's tough.

I plan on working on this in July which is the month that I plan to devote entirely to battlegrounds. I'll need to get a premade to do it. Our plan is to cap farm and hold it until the opposition reaches 340 and then cap blacksmith, Lumber Mill and Gold Mine quickly after that, following up with Stables for the 5-cap if needed.

To do this right, you need 15 very geared players and Ventrilo but it's certainly possible.

24. The Cake Is Not A Lie

I picked this one up on January 2nd. It's pretty horrible since it's pure RNG.

23. BB King (Alliance) or BB King (Horde)

I should go do this tonight. I only have one leader left and I simply haven't gotten around to it yet.

22. A Mask for All Occasions

THIS is what is going to break me. There are currently three achievements in the game that it's not possible for me to do in one year (Brew of the Year and Veteran Nanny, both because they take more than a year to complete, and Crashin' Thrashin' racer because it needs to be christmas to do this one and there were no racers avauilable last year.)

This one is possible, it's just completely horrible. It's pure RNG again, except that the chances of hitting all 20 masks in a single year are almost non-existant. I'm planning on making a macro to complete for me and trying to hit it once an hour while at work.

I think this is the one that will make me fail however.

21. King of the Fire Festival/Elders of the Alliance/Elders of the Horde

Doesn't really look too hard.

20. The Immortal

With all my guild in ilevel 264+ gear, this shouldn't be too hard. Our last attempt was cake until we got a disconnect on phase 3 Kael :/ I'll do this one in June (My "Dungeons and Raids" month).
19. 40 Exalted Reputations

18. All You Can Eat

I already have this one.

17. Gotta Go!

Again, doesn't seem overly hard now.

16. A Tribute to Immortality (Alliance) or A Tribute to Immortality (Horde)

Horrible, but doable. With a lot of practice, I think we'll get this one before the expansion comes out. If not, well, we can always try it at level 85. :)

I wound up being busy on Saturday so this had to wait until Sunday. I just have around 250 Kalimdor quests to go now.

Netherstorm is a very fast zone to quest in, despite the 120 quests required for the achiveement. The quests are almost entirely in that zone and no other and for the most part are simple, especially at 80.

There is lots of Consortium rep to be had here, as well as a lot of Scryers - both very helpful for getting 40 Exalted Reputations.

I already have a lot of good (ilevel 264/277) resto PVE gear so I'm happy to change things up and simply grind out a few hundred thousand honor and get a resto set (and spec) for arena play. I'll keep my enhance offspec for battlegrounds, although I may tweak it to be a little more PVE-friendly.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

I expect to have Netherstorm finished on Saturday, which will complete all of my Outlands quests. I'm down to my last few hundred quests in total for Loremaster (and The Seeker).

The Netherstorm quests are fairly fun and I'm getting a lot of scryers rep from Sunfury Signets and Arcane Tomes as well as some Consortium rep.

As for what comes next... I'm not sure. I know I need to prioritize Molten Core runs since I have 22 more of those to do (and I can only do them once per week) but I'm also starting to worry about getting my arena standings up. Most of the reputation grinds seem fairly simple and they all involve roughly a months work.

Should I work on PVP, picking up a resto and an elemental set to try different specs for arena? Should I focus on grinding reputations? Should I try to bust out all the Dungeons and Raids achievements as early as possible to prevent problems finding groups later?

Right now, I think that post-loremaster I'll spend an hour each day working on daily quests for a variety of factions and hoarding the money from each in order to buy a lot of the expensive mounts needed for achievements. I'll try to get a daily PVP in as well, and focus a bit more on PVP on the weekends. I'm also going to get a regular MC group together to bust out my weekly 800 reputation for the Hydraxian Waterlords.

This means that my Dungeon and Raids achievements are, by necessity, going to have to wait until June to be seriously worked on. This seems best as it will give my guild mates another 6-7 weeks of gearing up before trying to convince them that Yogg+0 isn't really all that hard...

In short, I plan to dedicate a month to each major area with a goal of finishing as many achievements as possible in that one area.

April: Loremaster and Quest achievements
May: Reputations
June: Dungeons and Raids
July: PVP
August: Arena (may switch with PVP depending on the cutoff date for Gladiator).
September: Professions (lots of Fishing to do), Mounts, tabards, anything that requires a lot of gold, etc.
October: try to finish up anything I am missing (the harder Dungeon achievements, 100,000 kills etc.)
November: I expect the expansion to come out around this point so I guess "level to 85"?
December: Bask in glory!

Noblegarden is complete. After I found the dress, it was all pretty easy - even finding a dwarf female wasn't too tough.

We worked on 10 ICC yesterday and for the first time extended lockout timer so we would start after the first 6-7 bosses. It was well worth it. We 1-shot everything to Sindragosa and, hopefully, both she and Lich King will fall next week.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

I already posted about using the Overachiever Mod but I just wanted to mention it again now that I'm working on the Shake Your Bunny Maker achievement. Simply mouse over groups of people and anyone you still need to shake your spring flowers at (!) will show up in red.

It's also still excellent for the achievements involving slaying pests and the like too.

I finally got the RNG to drop my Elegant Dress. This was a truly horrible grind. The dress is supposed to have a 0.5% drop rate (1 in 200 eggs, on average) so I was supremely unlucky not to get one until over 1000 eggs. Even after my 1000th egg, I was perfectly aware that I still only had a 1 in 200 chance to get the dress on my next cracking of an egg.

The first few days went well, with lots of achievements getting completed (I got the pet early and was feeling happy that the achievement wouldn't take long) but then slow realization crept in: the dress would never drop!

I did most of my grinding in Falconwing Square. When the area was busy, it's possible to camp in a few areas and be within reach of 5 eggs or so. When it's quiet, there is a nice circular path that you can take (with the speed boost) and can collect several eggs in a minute.

Once I passed 400 eggs however, I started to waver. In the eng, I just set a goal of opening 100 eggs and then quitting to do something else (PVP etc.). towards the end, I was seriously considering filing a bug report :)

Anyway, now that that's over, I've decided to prioritize some easy-to-get achievements so that I can start to focus on PVP more heavily next month (as well as rep-grind daily quests).

Ordered checklist of achievements I plan on completing before April 31st:

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Friday, April 2, 2010

I got exalted with Sporeggar this morning, netting me a pet and a tabard as well as the achievement. In the end, I caved and bought the last few sanguine hibiscus from the AH. They weren't much - 200g for all that I needed.

I'm refocusing on getting the Loreaster achievements completed and I worked on them for an hour this morning. I'm currently in Dragonspine in Outland, which is probably my least favourite zone because of all the flying needed to move around (as well as the fact that the lore seems... tacked on somehow).

I expect to finish the zone over the weekend.

I also got some PVP in. It's WSG weekend so I plan on trying to get in as many games as possible since rep is easier to farm on BG Holidays.

Noblegarden is coming up this weekend as well. I've read the guides and it seems straightforward - gather lots and lots of eggs and hope to get lucky with drops. Only buy the items you need after you have gathered all the eggs you will ever want to avoid buying something that you find later.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Yesterday was interesting. We completely failed to get 25ICC going, leading me to get saved to a raid without getting more than a single badge.

Instead, we ran Upper Black Rock Spire and picked up the Leeeeeroy title, the UBRS achievement and attunement to BWL.

We then 4-5 manned BWL, wiping on chromaggus once due to mind controls. Note: even at 80, Nefarion and any other boss with long mind-control abilities is tough!

Next, we ran (and finished, and got the achievement for) AQ20, picking up a bunch of rep with the cenarion circle. We also did some AQ40 leading to me getting a mount and some Brood of Nozdormu rep.

Note: 4 level 80's aren't enough to run AQ40, especially as a pug. It's probably possible, but it's not going to be a speed run if you try it.

Finally, I got some PVP in and worked on Sporeggar rep - I need another 7 turnins at 750 rep each to get exalted for the achievement, the pet and the tabard. I expect to get this finished today (Tuesday didn't happen due to maintainence in the morning.)